ok a tad long but detailed--

i play a biweekly 50$ cash game with some new found friends for about 6 months (usually with a stack of 30k chips with progressive blinds.) blinds increase every full circle... ME- i play small cash games/casino/and poker sites....i usually either win or break even id say probably 40/60.

the table is round and 4 on the left and four on the right and either 1 or two at the ends,,, we usually play with 9 but sometimes ten
the seating is pretty much always the same . When i first started playing i was either winning or breaking even for like the first first 3-4 games.

then as if overnight all of the sudden every game i get maybe 2-4 good hands the whole game and at least one of those will be beaten. Ive switched strategies, play style,
betting, still cant get any play or leverage in the games. The one thing that bothers me is its the same side of the table that always gets the top 3 the winners fluctuate but its still the same 4 guys who win for six months!

So im thinking next game to try to sit on the other side and see if they buck or if my odds get better....the only thing i can think of is that it has to be the way these guys shuffle (really shitty i or two shuffles dont mix the cards before and rarely split the deck) could this be why the hands are so shitty ? If so would it even help to change the seating?

these guys are honest from what i can tell (ive played with sharks and shady ppl before many times and realized and walked) im just at my wits end at how this happening. Does any one have any explanations/fixes or insight on whats going on or how to slove this problem...or am i being a sore loser ?anything is appreciated

We humans struggle with a couple of key elements of poker: probability and randomness.

When purely random events happen, we want to create a narrative to explain them. When we win by chance, we believe we are playing right, studying well, and learning from the right people. When we lose, we believe that some is cheating, or the deck is faulty, or we wore the wrong shoes.

The truth is, randomness and chance are built into poker. You will have upswings when you win often. You will have downswings when you lose every time. These swings can last for weeks, months, and sometimes years.

There are a few things you can do to cope:

First, make sure you are playing stakes that you can afford to lose. It isn't enough to ensure you won't go broke--you have to ensure that the money you lose won't cause you to lose your cool or mental toughness. If losing ever week for the next six months will cause you mental anguish, the game is too rich for you. Find one that fits your bankroll better.

Second, tell yourself that you are lucky. It seems dumb, but it helps. When you believe yourself to be unlucky you play worse and make more mistakes. When you feel fortunate you brush of bad beats, remember the wins, and keep moving forward.

Third, recognize that your skill will only help push the needle slightly in the positive direction. It will never eliminate the effects of randomness and chance. The best poker players in the world suffer long bouts of losing, and the worst players often win. Continue learning to keep nudging that needle in the positive direction so that when chance falls in your favor you have a better shot at making money.

Finally, play a lot. I mean, tens of thousands of hands. You won't know your skill level until you can analyze your results over a huge sample size; a few months of play don't mean anything statistically.

Good luck to you!

lol i understand what youre saying, but its 50$(nothing that will make lose sleep over)
I usually play higher stakes up to 5K. this is more about i ve played 100% better in any other game with high stakes players and weekend warriors in different formats during those six months also. and when i lost a lot of $ (but usually i break even) sometimes its luck for me or for them them and i had no problem because its how it is some times. nature of the beast.

i also forgot to put it up there that for the passed 3 games it was discovered they were only playing with 48 cards im pretty sure i know who it was he hadnt won a game at that table in 6 years and the last 3 he played in he either won or came in third.....he wasnt there
the last game though----but i do sincerely appreciate you replying and your feedback

Technical game issues are a red flag. If they can't properly count the cards (and if players don't examine the deck before play starts) you should play elsewhere.

There is no excuse for a 48-card deck to be used, ever. That would be the end of the matter for any serious player. Each dealer *and* each player has the responsibility to ensure a fair game. Be sure you examine every deck the next time you choose a live venue.

thats why i think these guys are honest (maybe not the smartest ) because since then we count before and every break end after

If I were you, I would take it a step further.

In every professional casino I've used, the dealer spreads the deck before play begins. The cards are sorted according to suit and rank, and each player has the opportunity to examine the deck to look for missing cards, duplicates, damage and other blemishes.

Counting 52 cards is better than what you had before, but you can do more to ensure that the deck is technically accurate.

Also note that decks are cheap. They should be replaced regularly before they become worn. Sharp-eyed players can spot wear patterns.

yeah they made fun of me because they say i take too long to deal but i spread and mix and shuffle and split when its my turn to deal....i might have to just suggest better shuffles or something.....theyre cool guys i like hanging with them it just seems off and i usually go with my gut and would usually walk but like i said theyre cool and seem honest i just think theres something im missing ------also they use the same deck forever so maybe someboys keen on it i will deff keep an out for that---kudos!

I have a couple comments. First, I don't understand the nature of the game. You call it a cash game, but you buy in for $50 and get 30,000 in chips and the blinds increase every orbit. That doesn't sound like a cash game to me - but maybe it is.

Second, bad shuffling will not make a certain group of people long term winners. No matter how someone shuffles, the winner of a hand (if all people played to showdown) should still be random, because a bad shuffle does not favor any particular seat. The exception to that is if they are cheating. Then they aren't "bad shuffling" they are stacking the deck. You feel like they are honest, and maybe they are, but all good cheaters appear to be honest, so the fact that you think they are honest doesn't really mean anything. Be careful.

I don't know how you pick your seats. In our home game, we decided that certain seats were preferred because they were less cramped (when there were 2 people on an end it wasn't comfortable). So at the start of the session, we drew cards for seats. This made it so it was random who got "good" seats, and also that the relative positions of players would vary each week. You might suggest that you mix up the seating, and see if this changes anything. One thing that is possible is that it isn't the shuffling that is the problem, but the dealing - possibly one of the other players isn't a good dealer, and people sitting in a certain location can see the cards as they are dealt. This still would be cheating, but more of a passive cheating that they consider fair game. Just a thought.

But here is a key point. You mention that you have a lot of experience playing. If that is true, then you should be able to tell whether who the good players are and who the bad players are. What is your feel - are the winners actually good, or do they somehow always seem to get lucky when they play their Q6 offsuit type hands. If they seem like good players, then maybe they are just better than everyone. If they seem to play terribly but always seem to get lucky, maybe they really are cheating.

One other question. You say that when you deal, you spread, mix, shuffle and split. I honestly have no idea exactly what you are doing - but whatever it is should not be standard procedure. Standard procedure is for one person to shuffle, pass that to a second person to cut the cards, and then give it to the person who deals. It is best to use 2 decks, so that while one hand is being played, one person can be shuffling. In our game, the person who deals gathers the cards after the hand. As the next hand is being dealt, they shuffle the cards. The cut card is then placed on top of the deck and moved to the person on their left (who was the dealer for the current hand). When that hand is over, the person who now has the cards takes the cut card, places it toward the next dealer, then cuts the deck onto it. The new dealer then completes the cut. We are all friends and have been playing together for years, and nobody suspects anyone of cheating. But this is simply a procedure that pretty much ensures a fair deal (I'm sure that extremely talented card mechanics, working in concert, could probably cheat, but I wouldn't be that worried about it).

I don't know how easy it is to institute new procedures to a long standing game, but I would certainly try.

I always like to say that humans have evolved a wonderful ability that has helped us survive all these thousands of years. We have the ability to look at seemingly random and chaotic data and find the pattern that is hidden within it. This ability comes with a flip side though: we also have the ability to look at actually random and chaotic data and find patterns that are not actually there. I think you most likely are experiencing the flip side of this ability.

We have a great deal of difficulty with knowing what randomness actually looks like. Walk into a casino. You will see at the roulette tables a display showing the result of the last 10-15 spins of the wheel. Would you think it is a rigged wheel if you walked in and saw 10 consecutive red numbers on that display? Most people might at least question it, but that wheel is spun literally thousands of times over the course of a week or so. It would actually be very unlikely that the wheel would NOT give ten reds spins in a row at some point during a given week, month or year (depending on how fast the game goes).

Unless you have more evidence than you presented (the 48 card bad deck is troubling, but not really definitive) you probably are not being cheated or a victim of bad shuffles.

lol - highly likely players are holding onto the other 4 cards and swapping them in and out. Now that you are hip to that they will prolly try something else.

if you dont mind getting cheated out of $50 - keep playing

VBAces----
i collect all the cards spread them out and mix them
then Riffle shuffle the deck two or three times
Strip shuffle the cards.
Riffle shuffle the cards once or twice more.
Cut the deck.

I wont lie 1 guy is a good player
the other guys are pretty basic



this forum has really been so helpful

VBA- i agree bad shuffling shouldnt have long term winners and thats why im so confused......but im seeing more and more thanks to yall that in the other games nobodys "friends" and because of that im letting that skew my perceptions.

I can totally see them seeing the cards from sloppy dealing and not saying anything especially how they deal they usually toss the cards across the table i lean in close to make sure cards are flat on the deal....this is probably the issue but im not going to make assumptions until ive exhausted every possibility .

I also love the idea of the cards for seating deff going to try that and yes game's that have been around a long time are hard to employ new standards

these are all things more probable and can be easily overlooked by me and my friendship with them and still be easily fixed kudos!

stremba --- i get it my logic is and feeling is the same with every game i play ,,,,hence the conflict in me with these guys

squid--- im almost there if these things dont work and the end results stay the same then its either better card players or pure luck-----but if they buck on any of these suggestions to ensure fair play ---then yeah im walking

1) Suggest that you draw for seats at the start of the session

2) Could it be that they've caught on to how you play more than the weak run of cards?

3) Very unlikely that anyone is setting the deck, but it's possible that some of the cards are exposed during the shuffle process and thus could be ruled 'not available' for this hand.

4) If it's the same deck, perhaps some of the cards are unintentionally marked? I once played in a game where they were using a Euchre deck and I had to some them since all the cards Ace-Nine had backings that were more faded than the others. GL

Suggest they use two decks. One being shuffled as one is in play.

to all that help thank you...

i offered all these ideas and they shot them down-oh well

i did manage to get a better seat and low and behold my cards were better

didnt win but that wasnt really the point --it was to study the game and understand why i seemed to get such awful results

its the whole game

first yeah they dont budge on the same seats everytime so different seating each game is never going to happen

the way do the chip distribution is pure horrid and they failed to understand when i explained the benefits for every player

there is no timed blind structure other than a full circle around the table ---literally we played 35 minutes before the blind increase

i wasnt even an hour into the game when i just hurried and played every hand to dump my chips and get out of there

i realized these dudes said i was "part of the gang" but my input meant crap to them especially when the prize system was pure crap for a "tournament style game "

im not going back i may have found a game that has better structure and plays by the book...hopefully i can get in
then i dont go home racking my brain why it was **** and just have the ease of mind knowing i played my best--- if i win awesome ,if i lose just wasnt my night ,or damn i need to tighten up my game lol

ive played some shady games, some really relaxed rules games, but i realized this was the first game where there just wasnt a care or respect for the game at all and how good i had it back home
and i was blinded because i liked the guys ....worst poker experience ever and my fault for just settling ...so i will update how different the results are at this new game (i dont expect to win but i expect to breakeven or be very close lol) supposedly these guys are serious players and maybe thats a huge factor in how a game is set up....merry christmas and ty for all the feed back!!!

Yes if I were to look at the display continuously over the course of say 10,000 hands I would expect to see ten reds in a row at least once. But since I am not doing that but looking at it once if I were to see ten reds in a row absent having the ability to see enough history to verify the wheel I'd not play for the next ten or so hands to acquire more data.

And a 48 card deck is a lot more than troubling depending on the missing 4 cards. Take away two Aces and two Kings and watch what happens to the value of QJ vs AK for example.

And there is the fallacy. A string of ten reds in a row is no more or less likely than if you walked in and saw that the last ten spins came up RRBRBBRBRB (or any other possible combination). Yet the ten reds has you suspicious but the equally unlikely sequence I gave probably would not. Why? Keep in mind that we have every reason to believe that a roulette wheel is completely random. The casino has absolutely nothing to gain by having a non random wheel, and quite a lot to lose. Just think of the killing hou could make if there really were a roulette wheel with say an 80 percent chance of coming up red.